Fertility

Our team of vets provide a range of fertility services for the dairy herd.

Pregnancy Diagnosis

Using manual or ultrasound palpation, our vets are able to detect pregnancy from as early as 30 days gestation. It is the early identification of non-pregnant cows that is most important and the recognition and treatment of fertility problems that provides economic benefit of pregnancy diagnosis. Having regular fertility visits can help to reduce calving to conception rates and provide you with accurate information to manage your herd more efficiently.

Bull Fertility Testing

A bull’s fertility is crucial to your herd’s performance and can be very costly if it goes wrong. We are fully equipped to carry out fertility and fitness testing on bulls. Testing consists of a physical exam of eyes, feet, gait, teeth, and reproductive organs as well as assessing semen quality and libido. Our bull fertility testing service is available to anyone, you do not have to be a regular FVS client.

Pelvic Measuring

Pelvic measuring is measuring the overall area of the pelvis to determine whether or not heifers are suitable for breeding. Heifers with a small pelvic area are more likely to have difficulty calving. Knowing this information can help you make informed decisions as to which heifers are worth putting to the bull.

Transition Cows

The transition period is an extremely challenging time period for both cows and producers. Our goal is to help you manage your transition cows and reduce the time they spend in negative energy balance to avoid the health challenges the transition period brings. Feel free to present these cows on your routine fertility visits.

We also work with Elanco to provide ‘The Healthy Start Checklist’ and review of your transition cows in the ‘Vital 90’ days. The review will assess housing, nutrition and water, and cow factors including BCS and ketosis monitoring.

Health Planning

Alongside a thorough and complete herd health plan, we like to carry out a cost review every year. From our experience, we expect the vet spend in a healthy well-managed dairy herd to be less than 0.8ppl. Using our management systems, our records can show if your spend per litre is more than this. We will then work with you to find out why and reduce it. This could mean making some management changes or focusing on factors to improve udder health or fertility.

Disease Investigation

• Do you have concerns over the health and productivity of your herd?
• Are your youngstock more frequently showing signs of disease?
• Have you experienced poor fertility or seen an increased rate of abortions?
• Are your cows failing to meet target BCS?

We have a the ability to perform a range of diagnostics to get to the bottom of the problem. Our aim is for your herd to perform to their potential, to maximise profitability and ensure good health and welfare. CLICK HERE to see some of our diagnostics.

TBAS

Everyone who farms cattle has concerns over TB and the thought of an upcoming TB test may fill you with dread. But this where TBAS comes in. We are now working with TBAS to help you regain some control and prevent TB from becoming a problem on your farm. The TB Advisory Service (TBAS) is a government funded project that offers practical, farm specific, cost effective advice regarding the control of TB on farm. This free advice and support is aimed at managing TB as an infectious disease that can be controlled and its risks mitigated through biosecurity measures. CLICK HERE to read more about TBAS,

Emergencies

Are you concerned about calving's or sick cows during the night or on weekends? Our out of hours service is covered by our own team of vets. We cover emergencies 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Whatever your problem, day or night, we are here to help. Call 01664 491266

Our Vet Tech – Robyn – provide a range of services to support the veterinary work and dairy health. Mobility scoring, body condition scoring and knock down disbuds are just some of the services she offers under veterinary direction, to support your dairy herd. Click here to find out more.

Our team of vets and ATTs are here to perform any of your TB testing needs across the East Midlands. In 2022, our busy TB team tested over 130,000 cattle!

Click here for more TB info >